


All Your Music

by stylinsonkings (ModernJesus)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Depression, F/M, Ghosts, Heaven, Lots of Crying, M/M, Multi, Supernatural Elements, and all that comes with it, ie:
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernJesus/pseuds/stylinsonkings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Harry deserved to die falling in love – not like this.”</p>
<p>Breaking News: Harry Styles, singer in the internationally successful boy band One Direction, was caught veering off the highway earlier this evening, colliding with a semi-trailer. Death was on impact.</p>
<p>After Harry’s death, everyone expects the world to stand still, but it’s the complete opposite – it does not stop; it speeds past everyone in a hazy blur. Niall starts a solo career; Louis and Zayn become elementary teachers; Liam fulfils his childhood dream of being a fireman. They keep in contact sometimes, pretending they’re doing okay. Little did they know that Harry was with them the whole time. From looking overhead, Harry watches his best friend’s lives come crashing down around them, and he watches his one true love fall in love with someone else.</p>
<p>~~</p>
<p>“Promise me you’ll never stop playing all your music.”</p>
<p>Louis hesitates, but he saw the passion in Harry’s eyes, and he wanted that to stay there forever. So he promised. “I promise.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. The Sudden Change

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. This fanfiction has been an idea of mine for a very long time (over a year now, I think?) and I did attempt it a long, long, long time ago on wattpad. But it failed because someone stole the first chapter, posted it elsewhere, and claimed it their own. So I deleted it and shut it out of my system. I forgot about it, basically. However, today, my iPod was on shuffle and the 'anthem' of this story came on, and reminded me why I had wanted to write it in the first place, and I thought to myself: why don't I try again? People have matured since last time. So I've decided to give it a shot.
> 
> Anthem: Like We Used To (Piano Version) by A Rocket To The Moon
> 
> (don't read this if you don't like spoilers!!!! ---> i will mention that this story will be very sad. there's a kinda lovely bones feel about this story, i feel, with the whole 'looking down from above' thing. its third person. yes, harry does die. no, its not a sad ending. yes, its happy in the end. thats all i'll say and that's all i'll ever say until its finished. until, then please read it and tell me what you think)

_"I know I've got a friend up in the atmosphere,  
And another reason not to fear the sky"_

**I. The Sudden Change**

The air smelt thick of gasoline and burning flesh, and even though his body was subconsciously numb, he could still feel the rain that fell down onto his skin. His hair was tucked inside a beanie, one that he couldn’t remember ever shoving on his head, but it was red and it matched the edges of his eyes. He thought it may have been the wettest day London had had in years, but he looked at the strip of yellow police tape, and men in long reflective coats and fire engines and police cars and ambulances all crammed into one section of the highway and he wasn’t really sure what to do with his shaking hands, let alone his thoughts on weather.

Whether or not it was the wettest day London had had didn’t matter anymore – all that mattered was that there a stretcher with a limp body on top of it, a white sheet pulled over to mask the gory details that lay _un_ masked underneath it; being pulled into an ambulance whose lights had been switched off. The soaking wet and shivering man barely took the time to notice the somewhat destroyed semitrailer perched unevenly in the roadside ditch, when he felt a hand grab around his waist, hoisting him backwards.

He knew who it was – he knew these arms as though they were his own, and without them around him right now, he wasn’t sure he would have managed to stand. The moment those arms had wrapped around him, his eyes had closed down around his blackening world, and a scream slipped between his lips that tasted like iron and he knew it was blood from his bleeding, bleeding heart.

 

He refused to take the range rover. It wasn’t the range rover, per se, just the thought that _he_ would have joined them in it, had this not had happened. So he hailed a taxi and when he jumped in and the man asked for a location he just said ‘take me to a better place’ and he doesn’t know when or how but he wakes up in an apartment once occupied by two but now by one and his sheets are cold and kettle empty and spare room smelling like the remnants of life that was beginning to settle into death.

His couch was grey and leather and he used to joke about how his thighs got stuck but now he laid out a blanket that once belonged to his mother and sat on that instead. He sat there in silence for a moment, hearing screams and laughter and memories long past. He turned the television on.

_“Breaking News: Harry Styles, singer in the internationally successful boy band One Direction, was caught veering off the highway earlier this evening, colliding with a semi-trailer. Death was on impact—”_

Louis Tomlinson turned the television off.

He wept.


	2. II. Escape The World

 

 

  
_"The haze is on my mind, I'm running from myself this time,_   
_And I don't see fine, I can't walk in a straight line"_

**II. Escape The World**

When the sun came up behind a think covering of winter clouds - crumbling and splotchey, like lead, heavy and poisonous - Louis didn't smile. He didn't smile at the way his radio switched on automatically, and begun to play his favourite song of the time. He didn't smile when he knew it was time for tea. He didn't smile while he drank it. He didn't smile at anything, and he had this sinking feeling in his chest - kind of life when you get your hopes up, and disappointment floods you so much more than what you were expecting, and then you start to drown. Louis was drowning. He had been taught to swim, but now, it was far too deep. It seems that he used to just wade in the shallows, but now he was in the deep end. 

 

Liam visited at noon. Louis was still in the living room, television muted, eyes still red and cloudy but painfully, achingly  _dry._ He had never felt a physical pain that he couldn't care less about - generally he ached a lot, because that's what came with the horrid sleeping rooms and lack of sleep touring brought. But this pain he did not care about. Compared to the ache in his chest, where his heart used to be, where  _He_ used to be, it didn't hurt at all.  _  
_

Liam stood somewhat awkwardly in the doorway of the room, and if _He_ were here, Louis would tease the way he stood with his pinkies linked together in front of his stomach, but now he didn't acknowledge the small habit. He just stared at him, eyes watering again, before he swore because he could not cry anymore. Although his eyes felt like sandpaper and stung like the bee had years ago, they still managed to water at the sight of a familiar warmth that lingered in Liam's face. _  
_

Liam didn't speak, and Louis was grateful. He wasn't sure he could handle it.

When he sunk onto the couch beside him, Louis shifted his body into his, and they sat there, both crying, and rocking into each other. Before, Louis would have found solace in these arms, but now he found nothing but cold blood and remnants of the man he loved and miss most. 

 

When Liam left, Louis felt along the cold spines of the books. The books sat within a old bookcase; one that  _He_ chose at a market months before. Where his blood once pumped potent, Louis' heart capsised defeningly in his chest, sending him backwards, tugging the shelves with him. He stepped out of the way to watch them fall to the ground, crashing against the glass centre table, smashing it to pieces. Louis did not care. Louis admired the way the wood splintered and cracked, sticking out in odd angles like bones from knees and like the veins leading to Louis' heart. 

He felt broken and empty and bloodless and cold and he wonders if it was really him that had died, not  _Him._

Whoever it had been - whoever had died - Louis was without his best friend and Louis decided nothing could be worse than this.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want you to understand that yes - this is very short! Yes, both the first chapter, and this second one have been incredibly short (only 500 words or so, maybe less). But there is a reason for that.  
> I either write with too much detail, or not enough. And in this case, I write this very little details at all. That is because I have faced death this year, and I know that I felt incredibly numb and almost as though I was the one who was dead, not my friend. So - over time, while Louis progresses with the pain and grief, things will get more descriptive. Also note that this is the beginning of the story, so yeah, chapters will be short. But don't give up on this.
> 
> Let me know what you thought. xx


	3. III. These Breaks Are Going Out

_“I’ll push my seat back as far as it will go,_  
Hold on tight as your lungs collapse,  
I can't wait 'till the impact hits you in the face,  
You can finally see we were made to be.”

**III. These Breaks Are Going Out**

Dawn the next day was somewhat warmer than it had been yesterday. Mutedly, Louis padded into the kitchen with bare feet and his toes tingled at the cool tiled surface. He filled the kettle up a little, switched it on, and watched the steam pour from its spout before the light flickered off. He felt lighter somehow – as though vital organs within his body were drastically missing, stolen, and replaced with just feathery air. And perhaps, Louis thought, that were true, because maybe it wasn’t stolen from his body, but a huge chunk of his life was taken from him. The difference felt the same to him.

He made his way back upstairs, ignoring the phone that had now begun to ring. It was shrill and irritating and Louis cursed whoever had invented such a device. But then he hesitated. He regretted that thought – that very thought in particular. Phones, although not in this very instance, had been a very useful and valued materialistic object in Louis’ life. Not only could he call to order his favourite pizza late at night – pepperoni, please, no sauces, extra cheese – but his mother too, when he needed her to sooth him with her whispering songs of wisdom and peace and renewal. But a lot of the time, he would call…he would—

But he didn’t like to remember. Not yet, at least. The memories were far too vivid and painful and they made his lungs hurt and eyes quiver with a glistening sheen of something he had grown unfairly used to. He sunk down onto his mattress, his bedroom suddenly causing him distaste in the back of his throat, and he felt like being ill. Sitting down his tea, he headed to the bathroom, where the floor was bone dry and didn’t have wet footprints on it that belonged to feet much bigger than his, and where a little vase of lilacs sat, dry as the floor, and as dead and Louis felt.

 

The phone rang again at lunch time.

Louis was drinking a coffee – something he never did, but he felt like starting a new routine that didn’t cause him as much pain as the other did. The taste was bitter and thick and smelt like something that had died, like him, he assumed. Louis didn’t like the taste, in fact, he detested it, but there was something about the disgust he tasted that made him feel more _real._

But the phone’s ringing tune had been set differently for people they actually liked – Louis’ mother, for example, who seemed to be calling now. Somewhat reluctantly, but glad nonetheless, Louis swung over the counter and grabbed the phone off the hook.

He didn’t say anything, but he awaited a calming breath with a voice like an hourglass; consistently full and always turning, always moving, but constant – always the same. When it came, he sighed.

“Baby…I am so, so sorry.”

Louis then began to cry again, but this time, he didn’t try to stop the tears falling.

 

That same day, two more calls came from the same household. But instead of his mother the second time, it was his twin sisters, which made him only want to die more so, because their voices were thick with what he knew as tears. The third call was from his mother again, saying how Anne had called her about the funeral plans. Louis hung up that time. He didn’t want to listen anymore.

 

He wasn’t sure why he made his way out to this spot, but for whatever reason it had been, it didn’t make much sense anymore. His knees were clicking from the long drive, and his ankles were exposed to the cool air, and all around him bouquets of flowers placed by people he’d probably never meet danced in the wind.

The section of highway was cleared, and only bits of metal scattered the side of the road. The taxi made a harsh turn, into the gutter, where he stopped the tracker and Louis handed him the cash amount. The driver looked at him apologetically, because he knew, who didn’t? But Louis pretended he didn’t see it, and he got out without a word of thanks.

As the car drove away, another car stopped, and a girl of about sixteen jumped out, lonesome. The flowers in her hands made his stomach curl, slightly, maybe not visibly in his eyes could she have seen the pain, but he felt it like it were slicing him open. Lilacs – _his_ favourites, and had been Louis’ too until this.

She didn’t notice him at first, but after she placed the flowers by a spare patch of un-flowered ground, by a white cross he didn’t know who placed, she saw his staggering body, and she stiffened.

For the first time in what seemed a very, very long time – the girl did not cry. She must have been a fan, because he wouldn’t think a non-fan would drive all the way to this very spot to pay her respects for someone she didn’t like, nor know. Or maybe she did know him. _He_ was a rather secretive person, Louis recalled, but somehow, Louis knew every small detail about him.

Louis missed him.

The teenager didn’t approach him, and he was thankful, but she did throw him a small wave, before sitting down on the spot of grass. She stared at the cross with uneven glances; sometimes watched the flowers, other time the name engraved on the cross’ front, and then moments over her shoulder, watching the cars drive past.

The car she had arrived in had long gone – speeding down the highway relentlessly, joining in with the rest of the unnerving traffic. Louis noticed the girl had now begun to cry, but he made no attempt to comfort her. He felt greedy, selfish even – but then he remembers the situation in which he was placed, and he felt greed no more.

But, his mother taught him to put others before himself (although not to the extent of self-loathing) so, he didn’t ignore her entirely. Glancing down at the flowers he held himself, selected carefully from _his_ rooftop garden, Louis had decided. With small steps, nervous and child-like, he made his way to the girl’s side. He sat down, clutching the flowers in his hand. They were red and yellow and white and green and pink and he didn’t really know what kinds they were, other than the fact they were beautiful and _his_ and entirely a place from his heart.

Louis had never liked _his_ garden, because he sometimes spent more times there than he did with him. But when Louis went up there before coming to the highway, he understood why. The flowers let of scents that merged into one, and it made him smile for the first time, because he understood – he really, truthfully, _finally,_ understood.

“He has this garden on the top of his roof,” his voice sounded weak and abused, and he didn’t want to say their roof, because it didn’t sound right. “He grew all different types of flowers – I don’t know what they’re called; I’m useless at plants. He hated me for that, only jokingly, of cause. But he laughed at me for it constantly. I miss that, his laugh, y’know? But anyway, I came here to give him some, because he loved them like nothing else, but…if he knew I had seen you here as upset as I appeared to be, he wouldn’t ever forgive me for it.”

He didn’t look at her. Instead, he held out the flowers in one hand, eyes on their stems. It was a moment before he felt them being taken from his hands, and then a kiss to his cheek, and a squeeze to his right fingers. “Thank you.” There was a hesitant pause. “I had no idea about the garden.”

When the winds started to fade, and the temperature had dropped, the sky had darkened and they aimlessly watched where the stars should have been – Louis replied. “Not many people did.” Louis thought he should have felt proud that he was one of the small few who did know, but instead, he felt like dying.

Louis waited with the girl, unspeaking, until the car pulled back up on the side of the road, headlights blaring into the night. Louis helped her stand, directing her to the car, where he kissed her cheek lightly, and wishing her well. She hesitated by the open door, before ducking her head inside, briskly speaking, before pulling it back out.

She spoke hurriedly, but in soft tones, like his mother. “Me and Dad are going for pizza. Do you want to join us?” Louis hesitated, shifting his weight from foot-to-foot. She noticed this, and said: “don’t worry; it’s nowhere big and crowded. I doubt you’ll be recognised.”

He heard a diluted ‘hey!’ from the car, but it was joking, and Louis was confused. But in a blurry unmasking, sitting somewhere deep, deep inside that confusion, a spark of warmth and opening widened before him.

He nodded, “sure.”

She smiled, opening the passenger door for him, which he politely accepted, and she in the back. The engine roared to life once more, and they were off.

 

Louis had never been to this part of London before. The buildings were smaller and more aged and they didn’t have remote-controlled garage doors, and the chimneys puffed out black smoke, rather than heaters. The car ride had be comfortably silent, only the slight sound of the radio playing it the background. At one point, it had grown awkward when they had played _Live While Were Young_ but the girl – who he had learned to be Margaret Crawford, and her father, Alastair Crawford – had changed the station upon hearing the first chords. It now sat on a no-name station talking about weather and cricket.

When the car stopped, the lights cut out, and Louis’ took the time to appreciate the truth behind Margaret’s earlier words. It wasn’t crowded, or big, and he was positive he wouldn’t be recognised. And besides, if he were, he thinks there wouldn’t be many there and they’d give him space during these recent events.

Alastair turned in his seat, pulling his gloves over his nimble fingers. “Welcome to Al’s Pizzeria.”

Louis cocked his head to the side, considering. Then—“This is dad’s restaurant, if you’re wondering.”

Louis smiled, stepping out of the car to stand by their sides, and headed indoors with the two of them. The interior was Italian-themed, with the flag mosaicked out of small tiles on one walls, paintings by Italian artists hanging collage-like on the others, and a mixture of tables and booths assorted randomly throughout the small, but warm, space.

Alastair direction them to a booth in the far side of the room, and Louis sat beside Margaret silently. They didn’t speak, and why they ate, they did not speak. When they drove Louis home, he muttered out a grateful thank-you, giving Margaret, telling her to text him whenever she needed. She said she would, and then they were gone.

 

Inside, Louis made himself a cup of coffee, but he took one sip and poured the rest out into the sink. He watched the way the black mixed in the with bits of moisture on the bottom of the metal, and he thought his life was like that, too; his life was the coffee, once so tasteful and wanted, but then poured away, now wasteful, and mixing with the horrid chills below the surface of happiness, and draining away for good.

If not him, his happiness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos + Comments really appreciated.


	4. IV. Talk In That Language

_“Love it feels like a long way down,_   
_So honey don't leave, don't leave,_   
_Please don't leave me now”_

**IV. Talk in That Language**

 

_U kno how u said my soul animal was coral?_

Louis read the text with a blurred vision. He didn’t see well in the morning, so he snatched up his glasses from the bedside. It was seven am, and the sun had risen, but Louis didn’t feel like he was ready for the world.

Louis replied to Zayn. _Yeah._

_ur wrong_

Louis sighed. _How?_

_Ur always wrong_

Louis agreed.

 

Two days later, he received another text. He was yet to leave his house – the last time he did was with Margaret and Alastair, eating pizza, and before that, placing flowers.

_Funerals tomorrow._

Louis frowned. _What?_

Niall replied after a moment of silence. _Its soon, I know._

Louis glanced out at the sun, and he cried.

 

The next morning, when the clouds covered the sun, Louis felt a numbing in his chest – tightening and clenching and he reached for his phone aimlessly. His head was pounding. He could hear it in his ears.

He opened a new text message, to Margaret. _Funeral today. will pick you up for it. Address?_

He felt it was the least he could do. _He_ would have wanted it, anyway.

_Ok_ was the reply he got, along with an address.

 

At 10 am, four hours before the funeral, Louis phone buzzed in his pocket. It was from Zayn again.

_Ok?_

_No._

_Either._

Louis sighed again, watching the clouds turn black.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this chapter is incredibly short - but that's the point. I want this story to have a large range, and it's almost treated like a diary and its very raw, I feel. So just bear with it. Besides, it's grief - this is Louis after his best friend dies. What do you expect from him?
> 
> Thanks for reading, and let me know what you thought. Love yah! xx

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos are really appreciated! x


End file.
